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The decline in eurozone prices is the most dramatic example of deflationary pressures afflicting the globe. All eyes are now on European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi and his efforts to reverse that trend.

It is essential for companies to work with banking partners they know they can trust. Global Finance’s annual ranking of World’s Safest Banks have been the recognized and trusted standard of financial counterparty safety for more than 20 years.

Global SalonGlobal Finance sat down recently with Andrew Spindler, president and CEO of the Financial Services Volunteer Corps, which has spread the gospel of sound financial systems to the developing world for the better part of a quarter of a century.

This year, we updated the name of the awards to reflect the extent to which digitization is transforming our lives in general and banking in particular. By renaming this as the Digital Bank Awards, we are making the competition more inclusive of current technology and more future-focused in anticipation of developments still to come.

Worries over inflation, monetary tightening and the possibility of slowing corporate earnings growth are expected to slow foreign institutional investor interest in Indian securities in the second half of this year.

However, FII ownership of Indian equities made up 16.9% of the Bombay Stock Exchange as of May 31 this year, according to the Securities and Exchange Board of India, with total market capitalization of FII holdings equalling $101 billion. This is much higher than the $77 billion held at the same time last year. Net debt inflows were $2.23 billion in the first six months of the year.

According to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), India attracted foreign direct investment inflows totaling $19.4 billion during the 2010–11 fiscal year, versus $25.9 billion a year earlier and $27.3 billion in 2008–09.

According to the Assocham report, India has the lowest level of FDI among the major developing nations—such as Brazil, Russia and South Africa. India’s FDI share of GDP moved up from 7.5% in 2006–07 to 8.8% in 2007–08. It continued to grow to 9.8% to 2008–09 and 13.0% in 2009–10, but fell to 12.2% in fiscal 2010–11.

In comparison, South Africa’s FDI share of GDP was 36.6% last year, Russia’s stood at 28.7%, Brazil’s at 22.9% and China’s at 9.9%.

However, outward foreign investment flows from India were strong. In the first-ever report from the country’s central bank on outward FDI, the Reserve Bank of India said that foreign investments by Indian companies totaled $5.1 billion for the first two months of the current fiscal year: April 2011–March 2012. In the previous fiscal year, Indian companies invested $43.9 billion overseas.